jamie goode's wine blog

I was interviewing Oz Clarke and Chris Murphy yesterday for a feature for M&S magazine, and one of the wines we looked at was this, a brilliant inexpensive Gamay from granitic soils in the northern Rhone. It’s just a beautiful, drinkable wine of real appeal, and it is absurdly underpriced.

Marks & Spencer Gamay Vin de [...]

I’m curious.

What do you look for in a wine?

Is it power? Concentration? Complexity?

Does it matter if it is natural or not? Must it display a sense of place?

Is it simply deliciousness?

Do you want a wine that offers value for money?

Do you like sweet fruit? Oak? Tannic structure (in reds)? Are you an acid freak?

Do you [...]

Pinot Noir 2013 has finished, and I’m exhausted. It was amazing, and I’ll write a lot more about it. For now, some more pictures of the pinot people.

Sherwyn Veldhuizen, Bell Hill

Kai Schubert and Marion Deimling, Schubert

Zinta Steprans dancing with Oz Clarke

Blair Walter with the Lifford girls, Joanna Steele and Nicole Campbell

John Szabo, me and Steven [...]

Some snaps from this brilliant Pinot Noir conference in Wellington.

Marquis Sauvage of Burn Cottage, and below the Burn Cottage tattoo on his leg, which took 4 h and was v painful.

Dorien Vermaas of Staete Landt

Larry McKenna and Bob Campbell

Clive Dougall of Seresin

Dawn Davies and Oz Clarke

Sam Neill, Two Paddocks

Duncan Forsyth, Mount Edward

Anna Flowerday, TWR

Jo and [...]

Wellington is a cool city. On the waterfront there’s a 7 m diving platform that’s very popular on a hot day like today. Jasper Morris, Nick Mills (Rippon) and Rudi Bauer (Quartz Reef) were brave enough to give it a go. Respect!

Spent a great day at a stag do for my buddy Richard today. He’s getting married in a few weeks, and so he gathered a bunch of chums to see him off in style.

We started off taking part in one of his favourite pursuits: shooting. Of late he has taken to going off for the [...]

On Friday, I took part in an interesting conference in Bordeaux, organized by closure manufacturer Diam. The audience was a group of Bordeaux wine growers, and the panel consisted of some well known wine communicators from across Europe. We were discussing the influencers – past, present and future – in the world of wine.

The panel [...]

2012 was quite a year. I’ve chosen some pictures to illustrate some of the key points of the last 12 months. This is what a wine writer’s life looks like (although, I suspect we wine writers have all had rather different experiences this year).

January saw the Sipnot tasting – the Stonier International Pinot Noir tasting, which [...]

A startlingly unoriginal post. I’m afraid. Begin the new year with some predictions. The problem is that I’m rubbish at predicting the future. And most of these lists tend to reflect the prejudices and wishes of the predictor. With these caveats in mind, here’s my stab at guessing what is going to happen in the world [...]

[A post prompted by a twitter discussion with Robert Joseph and Tim Atkin.]

It is great for the wine world when big brands do a good job. Examples that come to mind: Jacob’s Creek, Brancott, Concha y Toro.

It is hard for big wine brands to be good. This is because making authentic wine requires attention to [...]